Buddha Williams Wants His Unit to Play Harder Than Anyone in the Country

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

Defensive ends coach Buddha Williams pulled no strings on what he wants his unit to look like next fall when talking with Rhett Lewis on the latest Under the Hood with IU Football. In fact, it is a pretty simple objective.

“We pride ourselves on the effort that we play with. When you pop on that tape I hope that there's no group in the country that play harder than us.” Williams said.

Williams is one of the few coaches that are new to working under head coach Curt Cignetti. He comes from Colorado State where he coached a couple All-MWC performers. However, it was his time at North Dakota State that Curt Cignetti’s JMU teams caught his eye.

“When I was at North Dakota State. We had the privilege to matchup against James Madison and to the most important games by in my career. One was a national championship in 2019. And then the other one was in the semifinal game to go to the national championship in 2021. So it just like we always just kept getting matched up you know, so you can't just both staffs kind of get to know each other just by competition and competing against one another.” Williams explained.

Defensive end is one of the most impactful positions on the field and a position at which IU has struggled to get consistent production from. Williams is looking to change that in his first year in Bloomington.

“'Who are they' is the is the part that we're trying to figure out right now in the offseason which is by movements body types, size, strength, power, the whole nine.” Williams explained. “Then from there, you can let these guys create their own identity. And from here we can specialize in each individual guy going to be coached different going to have set a different set of toolboxes. We will have a different set of teaching, but it might be two or three guys that got some similarities. So you can kind of kind of pocket those guys and kind of work those guys together. But I kind of like to just let guys be who they are. And then kind of work towards that and build up those scripts.”

In 2023 IU’s defense ranked last in the Big Ten in sacks and sixth in tackles for loss. Williams has nowhere to go but up in terms of sack numbers.